RJI research scholars

Connor Sheets’ RJI Fellowship project, dubbed the Deputy Program, has had its share of kinks. But it’s also yielding tips, information and insights that would be nearly impossible for the AL.com newsroom to come up with on its own.

In the news this week, Twitter is exploring a potential sale, but Google, Apple and Disney might not be suitors anymore. Google unveils new Pixel phones, a smart speaker and VR gear — but artificial intelligence is the key to the new hardware.

Make visuals meaningful. Visual elements, such as photos, infographics, timelines, video and games have the potential to immerse users into geographies other than their own. Data become tangible. Stories become personal.

In the eye-tracking study, video was either first or second in the number and duration of fixations in each long-form project with video. In post-session interviews, however, participants had the most praise for photographs over all other elements.

With the tagline “There’s an app for that,” Apple ushered in the Age of the App with its iPhone 3G commercial in 2009. More recently, news organizations have started to develop more complex applications, integrating them within news stories.

Since the late 1990s, as breaking news and other types of journalism adapted, long feature stories remained best suited for print. Then, in 2012, The New York Times published “Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek,” a 17,000–word narrative.

As 2015-2016 RJI Research Scholars, we’re exploring audience reactions to long-form multimedia journalism, such as The Guardian’s Firestorm and The Verge’s examination of an intriguing solution to meat addiction.